Do You Want News? Try Twitter, Not Sun-Sentinel
BY BUDDY NEVINS
Memorial Day was a lesson in where the world is headed.
Unruly crowds caused trouble on Fort Lauderdale beach. A friend of mine reported seeing at least one car with a window smashed and roving bands of youths.
The bridges to the beach were closed.
But if you wanted to find out about it, you had to check the Fort Lauderdale Police’s fabulous Twitter feed, which keep everybody like me posted on what was happening.
The Sun-Sentinel website: Nothing. Nada.
The Sun-Sentinel, which has a staff of paid reporters, should be ashamed of itself. But apparently they couldn’t care less. The same thing happened earlier this year, when the paper and its website missed trouble on the beach.
Not only the Fort Lauderdale Police and Twitter shined. Television stations did a great job of informing the public. So did blogs.
The Sun-Sentinel and its website should also be ashamed that a Twitter feed like RedBroward beat the paper like a drum. Even Channel 6’s newsroom reads RedBroward, which I’ve heard arrogantly dismissed along with the other blogs by the “professionals” at the Sun-Sentinel:
This from Channel 6’s 11 p.m. news. The Sunsentinel.com did not have anything until Wednesday morning, which is a lifetime in news.
The Fort Lauderdale Police should be commended for its zero tolerance policy and its policy of keeping the public informed.
The SunSentinel.com. Well, they had something in the morning. Courtesy of Channel 4, complete with the television station’s video footage. Roughly 14 hours after the incident happened.
Doesn’t anybody at the Sun-Sentinel know what “breaking news” means today? Twitter does. Channel 7 does. Channel 4 & 6 do. RedBroward.com does.
Me, if I want to find out about “breaking news,” I’ll hit Twitter and the other websites.
Because the Sun-Sentinel is a broken news organization when it comes to “breaking news.”
Twitter photo from WSVN-Channel 7 viewer courtesy of Darcy Tannebaum, WSVN News.
Twitter photo from WSVN- Channel 7 viewer courtesy of Darcy Tannebaum, WSVN Channel 7 News
May 26th, 2014 at 10:10 pm
A sad day for journalism and worse for ft Lauderdale when south beach I was told by eye witnesses there had less disruption than my more peaceful ft Lauderdale! I don’t fault the city administration but the. County that controls resort tax revenues and wastes money on ice hockey in tropical Florida and faux children’s museums in west Broward with 140,000 salaries for politically connected housewives.
May 27th, 2014 at 3:12 am
There have been many stories I’ve seen on either FB or Twitter and I go to the S-S to read about it, and guess what? Nothing. Nada. As you said. All I can find are the same old stories they’ve run for 5 days straight, or stories they’ve gotten from another site that are more entertainment/gossip than real news.
If I want to read Buzzfeed or Huff Post, I’ll go to their sites. For news, sorry to say, you won’t find up to the minute stories on S-S. Too bad.
May 27th, 2014 at 7:19 am
They didn’t even cover any local Memorial Day events from what I could find in my edition of the newspaper.
May 27th, 2014 at 9:55 am
This is the reason why all us have our resumes out.
May 27th, 2014 at 11:33 am
If you want to read slanted politically motivated gossip stories with little basis in fact and a LOT of conjecture then ReBroward IS an appropriate blog.
May 27th, 2014 at 12:27 pm
I see JAAB broke the arrest of Judge Lynn Rosenthal with a pic of her in handcuffs ahead of the SS and tv stations.
No big deal Brittany still serves a purpose of letting us know when Neil Shiller lobbies the County Commission wearing socks or not.
May 27th, 2014 at 12:40 pm
Never commented on your posts before, but commend you for this site and especially this. I am a subscriber to the SS and could not believe there was nothing in the paper today. I had already seen a brief clip on TV. Do they take holidays off? Might be the end of my subscription.
May 27th, 2014 at 2:20 pm
Which stern are you Judy or little Judy aka Babs?
May 27th, 2014 at 8:15 pm
What a beautiful new postcard for Ft Lauderdale beach. Come to Ft Lauderdale, Get a brick thrown through your car window and your wife punched all while enjoying the ocean view.
May 27th, 2014 at 9:17 pm
A Memorial Day near-riot is not newsworthy to the Sun Sentinel until the next day but they are still running a Nov 4, 2013, article about Charlie Crist in the Top News section of their Android app. Somebody there has a woodie for Charlie!
I only subscribe to that paper to read the ads and get coupon inserts both of which easily save me more than the cost of the subscription.
FROM BUDDY:
I’ll tell you a little secret. I stopped subscribing to the Sun-Sentinel print edition years ago. (That should tell you something. I was in the newspaper business almost 40 years. I still get the print New York Times every day.) When I stopped, the Sun-Sentinel began dropping on my lawn without my asking a bundle of coupons and advertising flyers every weekend. So I get the bulk of the coupons and advertising flyers without having to subscribe to the paper. I wonder what genius at the Sun-Sentinel decided to do that?
May 28th, 2014 at 7:00 am
Hey it took them 12 days to report last year Memorial Day’s disturbance on the beach. Give them time on this one? There is time to beat their record.
May 29th, 2014 at 1:21 pm
Buddy, same here re: the coupon bundles when I cancelled my subscription. Except they do not deliver the coupon bundles to low-income neighborhoods, like my current Lauderhill. They sent them to me when I lived in a tony area of Hallandale Beach. I’d like to have a full subscription again just for the coupons and ads, but since they won’t give the coupons and ads to me for free, and their revenue is all-about dispersing advertising now and not actual news events, I don’t see why I should pay for a non-news publication when it’s all advertising. The paper is obviously not a newspaper, but now they’re doing their advertisers a disservice.
May 29th, 2014 at 2:56 pm
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/broward-politics-blog/sfl-is-bso-a-stone-zone-20140529,0,520539.story
An entire article about a political operative that is well known nationwide by political insiders yet the average local resident would have no clue. No offense Roger.
How is an article about a friend of Stone worthy of being a news story? Because Stone on his website and twitter feed have called bullshit on Wallman and Hubby Bob Norman. How pathetic that a story gets written because you have a petty rivalry?
The best part is she appears to be critical of stone and gunzberger for attacking political rivals yet uses this article to attack them
“The Broward Bugle is a pro-Scott-Israel blog and Twitter feed that smears perceived political foes. It previously was used by now-general-counsel of BSO Ron Gunzburger as a campaign tool to get Israel elected.) ”
Can she prove any of the above no.
SO what was the point of this article? Who knows. Cheap shots it appears.
In actual news…
http://www.dailybroward.com is exposing wasteful spending and raising questions about should the voters keep funding the children services counsel
http://www.jaablaw.com is writing about important matters at the courthouse and breaking major stories.
http://www.browardbeat.com is focused on what is going on in local law and politics without using the blog to settle scores and take cheap shots.
Little Britt and the Sun Sentinel? they are focused on a political operative who no one outside politics knows or cares about who has dared to call her and Bob on the carpet.
Does anyone wonder why people get news from blogs and not news papers anymore.
May 29th, 2014 at 9:13 pm
Brittany…
Is that why Roger Stone called the cops on your husband? Who are reported to be reeking of booze? Will that make the S-S? After all, you share the same beat.
http://www.myactsofsedition.com/2014/05/29/lauderdale-cops-respond-to-bob-normans-trespassing/
May 29th, 2014 at 9:14 pm
I’m thinking … The Daily Broward … WTF is that? And then I read Chris Leggett.
Say hello to Shelly for me numbnuts.